Kellyanne Conway Says ‘Who Knows’ How Many Secretary of State Finalists Trump Has

President-elect Donald Trump is expanding his pool of candidates for secretary of state, leaving unclear whether former CIA Director David Petraeus’ guilty plea for leaking classified information disqualifies him to serve as the nation’s top diplomat.

“There’s not a finite list of candidates” for secretary of state, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters on Sunday. “More than four. Who knows how many finalists there will be?”

The remark comes a week after Trump’s aides confirmed that the president-elect had settled on four finalists for the post. Two people close to the transition told The Associated Press that Trump is moving away from two of the four: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

That would leave Petraeus as a contender, along with Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Both people close to the transition said Trump’s prolonged decision-making process has left the door open to other options. Among other possibilities, one official says is Jon Huntsman, a former Republican Utah governor who also served as the ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin.

The people close to the transition spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private process publicly.

There was other evidence that Trump is looking beyond the known four contenders. Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday listed the quartet, but added a fresh reference to former U.N. ambassador “John Bolton or others who may be added to the list” of candidates.

“I think the person who will make the decision about our next secretary of state is the president-elect,” Pence said on ABC. “And he’ll factor the totality of Gen. Petraeus’ career in making that decision.”

Pence also referred to Petraeus as a “hero.” But it seemed unclear Sunday even to Petraeus and Trump’s inner circle whether the retired general’s guilty plea has turned off Trump.

Petraeus, a retired four-star general, pleaded guilty last year to one misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information relating to documents he had provided to a woman he was having a sexual relationship with. He was spared prison time under a plea agreement with the Justice Department and was given two years’ probation.

FBI Director James Comey has drawn a distinction between Petraeus’ case and that of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by saying there was no evidence that Clinton or her aides had intended to break the law through careless handling of sensitive information. Federal prosecutors said Petraeus knew black binders he shared contained classified information, but he nonetheless provided them.

“I made a mistake. I have again acknowledged it,” Petraeus said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” ”Folks will have to factor that in and determine whether that is indeed disqualifying or not.”

The remarks come as Trump struggles to fill one of the most visible and prestigious positions in any presidential administration. The secretary of state will steer Trump’s foreign policy agenda, which the president-elect has said would include renegotiating key trade deals and the pact aimed at keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But for all his business acumen, Trump has no experience with government diplomacy. He’s most recently drawn criticism for speaking with Taiwan’s leader that contradicted U.S. practice and prompted a complaint from China.

Democrats’ Task: Rebuild the Blue Political Wall in Midwest

Democrats need to rebuild the political “blue wall” of traditionally Democratic upper Midwest and Great Lakes states that Republican Donald Trump captured with an appeal to white, working-class voters.

Hillary Clinton’s failure to hold key blocs of these voters helped seal Trump’s stunning electoral victory and leaves Democrats with a gaping, perhaps long-term, hole in the party’s national battle front. Trump boasted of his accomplishment at a post-election rally in Ohio.

Trump carried Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Democratic nominees had won the previous six presidential elections. Trump also won Wisconsin, carried by Democrats in seven straight tries, and Iowa, carried just once by a Republican over the same period.

Should Democratic voting continue to lag behind Republicans in midterm elections, as it did in in 2014, the results could be devastating in two years when the party will defend Senate seats in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and try to retake governorships in Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“Democrats suffered the consequences of apathy and selective amnesia over the past midterms and arrogance over the presidential electorate,” said Haley Morris, a senior adviser to Democrat Gary Peters’ Michigan Senate campaign, among the Democrats’ few 2014 victories in the region. “We got walloped across the Midwest in 2010 and 2014. Democrats had a glimpse of what the results could look like without Barack Obama on the ticket and ignored it.”

Mark Jefferson, the Republican National Committee’s Midwest regional political director, said the GOP consistently focused on “blue-collar Reagan Democrats, who were heavily trending toward Trump.”

County-specific, unofficial national voting data tabulated by The Associated Press shows Clinton received fewer votes than Trump in places Democrats had banked on for consecutive elections, and even decades, such as Dubuque County, Iowa.

For more on the election, watch:

Trump edged Clinton by fewer than 1,000 votes in this northeast Iowa county known for its small-city namesake on the Mississippi River and its once thriving manufacturing economy. Trump became the first Republican to carry Dubuque County since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.

Clinton’s 22,774 Dubuque County total fell roughly 6,000 fewer short of Obama’s 28,768 in 2012, and more than 1,000 behind his 23,791 in 2008.

Dubuque’s Rebecca Thoeni, a lifelong Democrat until recently, said Clinton did not seem to reach out to her or her peers in 2016.

“Then I saw Donald Trump, and he got out there and showed he was serious about keeping jobs,” said Thoeni, who attended a Dubuque Trump rally in January. “He explained things in layman’s terms. That’s what changed me.”

Thoeni’s is a scenario that echoed loudly around the country, where six in 10 white women without college degrees said they voted for Trump, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Research. The rate was even higher among white, non-college educated men.

And it played out in the thousands in Macomb County, Michigan, home to 10% of the state’s voters.

After railing for months against the North American Free Trade Agreement, enacted under President Bill Clinton, Trump won Macomb by 48,000 votes. Clinton received 176,238 votes, compared with Obama’s 208,016 in 2012 and 223,754 in 2008.

“In counties decimated by trade deals, decades of talking points don’t pay the bills,” said Robert Becker, who ran Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ winning campaign for the Michigan Democratic presidential 2016 primary. “For the party’s future, we have to be honest that the jobs being created in the country aren’t being created in this part of the country.”

The pattern held in Wisconsin too, where Trump won fewer votes than Romney did in suburban Milwaukee and where Trump’s criticism of Gov. Scott Walker worked against him. However, he carried the state in part by winning places like Racine County, part of a former union-heavy industrial corridor between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Trump received about 4,000 votes more than Clinton in Racine County. Clinton’s 42,506 were more than 10,000 off Obama’s 53,008 in 2012 and 53,405 in 2008.

In Pennsylvania, Trump similarly won Erie and Luzerne counties, smaller metropolitan areas than sprawling Philadelphia and its suburbs, but with a higher white working-class population and unemployment higher than the state average. Democratic presidential candidates had carried both counties in the past six consecutive elections.

Trump beat Clinton in Luzerne County—childhood home of Vice President Joe Biden—78,303 to 52,092.

In the final weeks, Clinton focused on emerging Democratic states such as Arizona and North Carolina. She lost both.

Clinton did not have ties to working-class white voters as strong as those of her husband, who had been governor of Arkansas, said political historian Mary Frances Berry of the University of Pennsylvania.

Berry, who has also worked for Democratic candidates, said before the election that Hillary Clinton was not contesting Trump in blue-collar country.

The Democratic Party is seen by ordinary, working people as “caring about the cultural, managerial and professional elite,” she said, “not about them.”

Trump Calls Mitt Romney in Again After Kellyanne Conway’s Warning

Donald Trump’s hunt for a secretary of state is veering into dramatic terrain, with the president-elect summoning Mitt Romney back for a second look as a top aide leads a public pressure campaign against the pick.

Trump has a follow-up meeting Tuesday with the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, who has become a symbol of the internal divisions agitating the transition team. He also plans to sit with Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On Monday, Trump spent an hour with retired Gen. David Petraeus, a new contender.

Aides were divided over Trump’s choices, particularly the prospect that Trump could tap Romney for the top-tier diplomatic post. In an unusual public airing of internal machinations, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway on Sunday warned that the president-elect’s supporters would feel “betrayed” if he tapped Romney as secretary of state.

One announcement expected Tuesday was Georgia Rep. Tom Price to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump has selected Price for the role, according to a person familiar with the decision. The person was not authorized to discuss the nomination publicly ahead of the announcement and so insisted on anonymity.

While other staffing decisions were being made, the search for secretary of state was still underway. Petraeus said he spent about an hour with the president-elect and praised him for showing a “great grasp of a variety of the challenges that are out there.”

The former CIA chief pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information relating to documents he had provided to his biographer, with whom he was having an affair.

Pence, who is heading the transition effort, is said to be among those backing Romney for secretary of state. Romney was fiercely critical of Trump throughout the campaign but is interested in the Cabinet position, and they discussed it during a lengthy meeting earlier this month.

Other top Trump allies, notably Conway, have launched a highly unusual public campaign against a Romney nomination. Conway’s comments stirred speculation that she is seeking either to force Trump’s hand or give him cover for ultimately passing over Romney.

Three people close to the transition team said Trump had been aware that Conway planned to voice her opinion, both on Twitter and in television interviews. They disputed reports that Trump was furious at her and suggested his decision to consider additional candidates instead highlighted her influence.

Trump is said to have offered Conway a choice of White House jobs — either press secretary or communications director. But people with knowledge of Conway’s plans say she is more interested in serving as an outside political adviser, akin to the role President Barack Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe played following the 2008 election.

Trump was considering former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to head the Homeland Security Department, according to those close to the transition process. Giuliani was initially the front-runner for secretary of state and is still in the mix. But questions about his overseas business dealings, as well as his public campaigning for the job, have given Trump pause.

Those close to the transition insisted on anonymity in commenting because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the private process.

In addition to the public staffing spat, the campaign was forced Monday to defend Trump’s baseless assertions of illegal voting, made in angry response to a recount effort.

That effort, led by Green Party candidate Jill Stein and joined by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, marched on in three states, based partly on the Stein campaign’s unsubstantiated assertion that cyber-hacking could have interfered with electronic voting machines. Wisconsin officials approved plans to begin a recount as early as Thursday. Stein also asked for a recount in Pennsylvania and was expected to do the same in Michigan, where officials certified Trump’s victory Monday.

Trump has denounced the recounts and now claims without evidence that he, not Clinton, would have won the popular vote if it hadn’t been for “millions of people who voted illegally.” On Twitter, he singled out Virginia, California and New Hampshire.

There has been no indication of widespread election tampering or voter fraud in those states or any others. Trump aides struggled Monday to back up their boss’ claim.

Trump Aide Steps Up Bid to Block Possible Romney Nomination

A top Donald Trump adviser warned Sunday that the president-elect’s supporters would feel “betrayed” if he tapped former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as secretary of state, a move that would put a once fierce Trump critic in a powerful Cabinet post.

The comments from Kellyanne Conway deepened a highly unusual push by some Trump allies to stop the president-elect from nominating Romney. The extraordinary public nature of the effort has also stirred speculation that it could be a Trump-approved attempt to humiliate a prominent Republican who staunchly opposed him throughout the presidential campaign.

Conway, who served as Trump’s campaign manager and is part of his transition team, said her opposition to Romney reflected what she’s been hearing from Trump voters.

“People feel betrayed to think that Gov. Romney, who went out of his way to question the character and the intellect and the integrity of Donald Trump, now our president-elect, would be given the most significant cabinet post of all,” Conway said in one of several television interviews Sunday. She said Romney was “nothing but awful” to Trump for a year.

People involved in the transition process said Trump’s decision on his secretary of state did not appear to be imminent.

Trump is an avid consumer of television news and his advisers and allies often use their appearances to send messages to Trump or the Republican establishment. Still, it’s rare for Conway and other close aides who speak frequently with Trump in private to be so explicit about their views in public. That makes it seem at least possible that Conway was acting at Trump’s behest by suggesting the president-elect was being generous by considering his former political rival.

Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, vigorously challenged Trump’s fitness for the presidency, including his foreign policy credentials. In a wide-ranging condemnation of Trump in March, Romney said the businessman’s bombast was “alarming the allies and fueling the enmity of our enemies.”

Trump responded by mocking Romney, calling him a “choker” and saying he “walks like a penguin.”

The freeze between two men appeared to thaw after they spoke by phone following the election. Romney then traveled to Trump’s New Jersey golf club for a private meeting to discuss the possibility of joining the administration.

In nominating Romney, Trump would be signaling his willingness to heal campaign wounds and reach out to traditional Republicans who were deeply skeptical of his experience and temperament. Romney is well-liked by GOP lawmakers and was supported by numerous Republican national security experts during his failed White House bid.

But Conway suggested those weren’t reasons enough to nominate Romney as the nation’s top diplomat.

“I’m all for party unity, but I’m not sure that we have to pay for that with the secretary of State position,” Conway said.

Despite the effort to discredit him, Romney is said to remain interested in serving in Trump’s Cabinet, though those close to him acknowledge his opposition to Trump during the campaign hurt his chances.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was fiercely loyal to Trump throughout the campaign, quickly emerged as a front-runner for the secretary of state post and is still in contention. However, questions about his overseas business ties—as well as his own public campaigning for the job—are said to have given Trump pause.

The wrangling over Romney and Giuliani has raised the possibility that Trump may go with a third option. His transition team has also considered Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton for the job.

People with knowledge of the transition process say Trump is also considering retired Marine Gen. John Kelly for the post. Kelly met with the president-elect last week.

Conway appeared Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, and CNN’s State of the Union.

Trump, Pence Address Potential of Romney, Mattis in Cabinet

Mitt Romney is a key contender to become the nation’s next secretary of state and retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis was an “impressive” prospect for defense secretary, President-elect Donald Trump and his No. 2, Mike Pence, said Sunday.

“Gov. Romney is under active and serious consideration to serve as secretary of state of the United States,” said Pence, the vice president-elect who is leading the search for Trump’s cabinet members, in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation.

The comments were indications that Trump is looking outside his immediate circle as he works toward rounding out his foreign policy and national security teams. On Friday, he named a loyalist, ret. Gen. Michael Flynn, as his national security adviser.

Trump met with Mattis a few hours after Romney. On Sunday, the billionaire interrupted his tweeted criticisms of “Saturday Night Live,” the hit musical “Hamilton,” and Democrats to write that, “General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, who is being considered for secretary of defense, was very impressive yesterday. A true General’s General!”

The former Massachusetts governor and 2012 GOP presidential contender and Trump exchanged bitter insults during the campaign, and Mattis has not been considered a Trump confidante. The appointment of more establishment figures could offer some reassurance to lawmakers and others concerned about Trump’s hard-line positions on immigration and national security and his lack of foreign policy experience.

But even as Trump and his team discussed pressing issues facing the country and how to staff the incoming administration, the president-elect’s Twitter feed suggested other issues too were on his mind.

His targets Sunday included retiring Democratic Leader Harry Reid. Trump tweeted that incoming Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, another media-savvy New Yorker, was “far smarter” than Reid and “has the ability to get things done.”

Trump also complained that “Saturday Night Live,” which thrives on making fun of politicians, is “biased” and not funny. The night before, actor Alec Baldwin portrayed Trump as Googling, “What is ISIS?”

Trump also insisted again that the cast and producers of Hamilton should apologize after the lead actor addressed Pence from the stage Friday night, telling the vice president-elect that “diverse America” was “alarmed and anxious” about the incoming administration. Pence said on CBS’s Face the Nation that he enjoyed the show and wasn’t offended.

For more on Trump, watch:

Meanwhile, Trump received more visitors to his golf club in New Jersey Sunday. His schedule in Bedminster was to include former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Both Romney and Trump put on a show of smiles, a public handshake and a thumbs-up Saturday, a marked shift in tone after a year in which Romney attacked Trump as a “con man” and Trump labeled him a “loser.” But the two have started to mend fences since Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump started filling key administration positions on Friday, picking Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general and Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to head the CIA, signaling a sharp rightward shift in U.S. security policy as he begins to form his Cabinet. Trump also named retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn as his national security adviser.

Trump’s initial decisions suggest a more aggressive military involvement in counterterror strategy and a greater emphasis on Islam’s role in stoking extremism. Sessions, who is best known for his hard line immigration views, has questioned whether terrorist suspects should benefit from the rights available in U.S. courts. Pompeo has said Muslim leaders are “potentially complicit” in attacks if they do not denounce violence carried out in the name of Islam.

Pompeo’s nomination to lead the CIA also opens the prospect of the U.S. resuming torture of detainees. Trump has backed harsh interrogation techniques that President Barack Obama and Congress have banned, saying the U.S. “should go tougher than waterboarding,” which simulates drowning. In 2014, Pompeo criticized Obama for “ending our interrogation program” and said intelligence officials “are not torturers, they are patriots.”

Sessions and Pompeo would both require Senate confirmation; Flynn would not.

Trump Provokes a Latino Surge

As the 2016 presidential election finally, mercifully circles the drain, early returns are showing a surge in Latino voting that should brace Republicans. No matter what happens on Election Day, the party is in for a painful reckoning over its governing vision. And the debate over immigration reform awaits as perhaps the most explosive facing the GOP’s warring factions.

Following President Obama’s 2012 reelection, the party’s official autopsy threw in with the pragmatists who wanted to forge a comprehensive package beefing up border security while also creating a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented workers already here. “If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only,” it read.

That assessment came after an election in which Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, tacked right on immigration to navigate a crowded primary field, along the way calling for undocumented workers to “self-deport.” In the general election, he won only 27% of the Latino vote, a steep decline from the 44% that comparatively reform-friendly George W. Bush won in 2004. Now just four years later, Trump looks on track to pull just half the support Romney earned from the demographic. And that performance will amount to an even heavier drag on his prospects, thanks to what appears to be record Latino turnout already materializing across the map.

On a press call Friday, for example, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said more Latinos have taken advantage of early voting in Florida than voted in the entire election there four years ago. And a similar groundwell appears to be driving early turnout in Nevada, defying polling models that showed a tighter race there. Nationally, several projections by outside groups suggest the Latino vote could roughly double as a share of the total electorate from 6% in 2004 to 12% this year.

So will Congressional Republicans find the will to take on comprehensive immigration reform next year? If nothing else, it would mark an important first step in stanching the bleeding that Trump and his border wall-focused bid wreaked with an increasingly critical voting bloc. But don’t count on it. The reason comes down to the difference between what it takes to win a national election versus stitching together enough seats to secure a Congressional majority. In the 2012 election, thanks to districts redrawn by Republican state legislatures, the GOP won 54% of House seats despite earning only 49% of the vote overall. And the proliferation of safe Republican seats means incumbents have more to fear from a primary challenge—say, by an upstart staking out an even harder line against immigration reform—than from a Democrat in the general election.

“The boost in Hispanic voter registration might impact a handful to a dozen Republican-held districts over the long term,” says Nathan Gonzales, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report. “But I don’t think it’s going to be sweeping across districts everywhere to cause a fundamental shift in the Republican stance.”

For more on Latinos, watch:

In the Senate, of course, candidates compete on the same map that determines presidential contests. But if Clinton wins and Democrats net just the four seats they need to snatch back control of the upper chamber on Tuesday, a very plausible outcome, there’s reason to believe the victory could be short-lived. In that scenario, the parties would each claim 50 seats, with a Vice President Tim Kaine casting the tie-breaking vote.

A special election to replace Kaine in the Senate looms next November in Virginia, raising the possibility that Republicans could win the seat and thereby reclaim the chamber less than a year into Clinton’s first term. And the picture gets brighter for Republicans in the 2018 midterms. Democrats will be defending 23 seats, while the GOP protects eight. Republicans are eyeing some of their best pickup opportunities in eight states, stretching from Virginia to Wisconsin, in which Latinos started the year making up less than 5% of the electorate.

So the immediate interests of Congressional GOPers look primed to frustrate the party’s longer-term ambition of winning national elections again. Call it a Republican self-deportation from the White House.

Don’t Blame Paul Ryan for Voting for Donald Trump

Leaders in every field should pay close attention to Paul Ryan in weeks and months ahead. America’s highest ranking Republican as House speaker, he’s in an impossible situation facing irreconcilable conflicts between his duty, on the one hand, and his clear loathing for Donald Trump, plus his own ambitions, on the other. In my opinion – though definitely not in everyone’s – he has done an admirable job managing the conflicts so far. He’s worth watching because no matter who wins on Tuesday, those conflicts will only grow more troublesome.

His conflict of the moment was on painful display yesterday when he told a TV interviewer that he had already voted “for our nominee,” refusing to speak Trump’s name. As speaker and as America’s most popular Republican, Ryan has a duty to help other Republicans win their House and Senate races, so he can’t denounce Trump (as Mitt Romney did) and risk turning Trump’s millions of supporters against down-ballot candidates. As speaker, Ryan also has a duty to endorse his party’s nominee, which he has done through tortured rhetoric that combines endorsing with refusing to defend or campaign for Trump.

Now, having voted for Trump, Ryan has done his duty. Doing so conflicts not just with his own views and values but also with his ambition, and this conflict will play out in many ways after the election. Ryan would apparently like to be president. With that as a goal, continuing to serve as speaker offers nothing but trouble.

If Hillary Clinton is president, Ryan might well be able to negotiate a bill that she and enough Congressional Democrats would support on an issue of great importance to him, immigration reform. But cooperating with the Dems on such a hot-button issue could brand him as a hopeless traitor to those Republicans most likely to vote in presidential primaries. Ryan’s situation is no easier under a President Trump, whose seat-of-the-pants positions on immigration, entitlements, trade, and tax policy are virtually the opposite of Ryan’s. So he’d be in the position of continually fighting his own party’s president – not a promising path to the nomination. That’s why some commentators have advised Ryan to get out of the speaker’s job fast.

Sign up for daily insights, updates, and opinion on leadership and leaders in the news at the Power Sheet.

But that’s another conflict with duty. Ryan reluctantly accepted the job a year ago after House Republicans forced John Boehner out and it became clear that Ryan was the only person around whom the party could unite. At the time, he suggested that he would want out as soon as the next Congress convened, in January 2017. But now his colleagues overwhelmingly want him to continue. Would he refuse, throwing his party into chaos in order to further his own ambition? Plenty of politicians would do so in an eyeblink, and voters might not care; they’re used to it. But Ryan has not operated that way in the past.

Duty vs. values, duty vs. ambition – these are conflicts that every leader faces. Ryan faces them in particularly dramatic circumstances on an unusually public stage. He is also an intellectual who tries to remain principled, the kind of leader many others would like to emulate. How he navigates his future, for better or worse, will be a leadership case study worth following.

So Far, Sexting, Groping is 2016’s ‘October Surprise’

U.S. presidential campaigns are never predictable, although the number of late-breaking, surprise developments in the 2016 campaign may set the mark.

A historical look at what politicos like to refer to as an “October Surprise”—an unpredictable development that roils the White House race and comes days or weeks, or even earlier than October, before people vote.

2016:

Predatory language, groping allegations, sexting and an FBI emails investigation. It’s been the October Surprise that keeps on giving.

The emails would have driven news coverage entirely if not for the Access Hollywood recording in which Donald Trump bragged to TV host Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women. Trump dismissed his comments as “locker room talk,” but several women have come forward to say Trump made unwanted sexual advances in the past.

Then came Anthony Weiner. The former New York congressman and estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin had already been disgraced in a string of sexting scandals. But when the FBI opened an investigation into his alleged communications with a 15-year-old girl, the bureau discovered emails that Director James Comey said appeared “pertinent” to a previously closed investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Comey’s notice to Congress raised more questions than answers just 11 days before Election Day.

___

2012:

In September, as the race between Republican Mitt Romney and Democratic incumbent Barack Obama was drawing to a close, a secretly recorded video emerged that caught Romney saying 47% of Americans pay no taxes and consider themselves as victims. The comment fed into an existing impression by many voters that Romney wasn’t looking out for ordinary people.

Then in late October, Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast, giving Obama a chance to showcase his chief executive credentials, get an appreciative response from Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., and leave Romney struggling to strike the right tone.

___

For more on the election, watch:

2004:

Democrat John Kerry headed into the final weekend of the campaign feeling good about his chances of beating President George W. Bush. Then Osama bin Laden released a video lauding the 9/11 attacks and criticizing Bush.

Kerry said he watched the polls freeze and then drop. After the election, Kerry blamed the al-Qaida leader for costing him the presidency. Kerry’s theory was that bin Laden’s comment had agitated voters. “It changed the entire dynamic of the last five days,” Kerry said.

Five days before the election, word surfaced that Bush had been arrested on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge in 1976. Republicans said the release of 24-year-old information at such a time was a Democratic dirty trick, and a Democratic activist acknowledged he had tipped off reporters.

Bush won anyway, but many of his advisers thought the news depressed turnout among social conservatives and made the race much closer than it would have been otherwise.

___

1980:

This was the case of the October Surprise that never happened.

For a year leading up to the presidential election, Democratic President Jimmy Carter had been trying to secure the release of American hostages in Iran. Critics of Ronald Reagan, the Republican challenger, claim that Reagan’s campaign manager and others negotiated privately with the Iranians to ensure that the hostages wouldn’t be released just before the election.

Reagan wound up beating Carter, and the 52 hostages were released the same day that Reagan was inaugurated as president. A congressional task force later concluded there was “no credible evidence” of such a deal.

In 1972, as President Richard Nixon was fending off a challenge from Democratic Sen. George McGovern, Nixon authorized national security adviser Henry Kissinger to say “peace is at hand” in Vietnam. The late October pronouncement was welcome news to the war-fatigued United States, and bolstered Nixon’s re-election mandate.

It turned out Kissinger’s prediction was way off the mark: The heaviest bombing of the war started just before Christmas 1972.

After what Donald Trump himself drily called “an interesting 24 hours,” high ranking members of the GOP and Republican elected officials are continuing to condemn Trump in droves.

In light of the newly published 2005 video, in which Trump makes vulgar comments about women and said he can “do anything” to them, even Trump’s own vice president expressed shock. “As a husband and a father, I was offended by the words and actions described by Donald Trump… I do not condone the remarks and cannot defend them,” Mike Pence said in a statement Saturday. But Pence stopped short of renouncing support or leaving the ticket: “I am grateful that he has expressed remorse and apologized to the American people. We pray for his family and look forward to the opportunity he has to show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation tomorrow night.”

Many other Republicans, however, said they don’t want to hear from Trump at the second debate, and said they think it’s time for him to drop out. Former Republican primary candidate Carly Fiorina said Trump should “step aside” as the GOP nominee. “Donald Trump does not represent me or my party,” she said in a Facebook post Saturday. (Fiorina experienced a sexist comment from Trump firsthand in the primary, when he suggested people wouldn’t vote for her because of her “face.”)

West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito also suggested Saturday that Trump should no longer lead the ticket. “As a woman, a mother, and a grandmother to three young girls, I am deeply offended by Mr. Trump’s remarks, and there is no excuse for the disgusting and demeaning language,” she said in a statement. “Women have worked hard to gain the dignity and respect we deserve. The appropriate next step may be for him to reexamine his candidacy.” Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Trump has “forfeited the right” to the nomination, and Utah Rep. Mia Love said in a Facebook post that she would not vote for Clinton, but that she “cannot vote for him. For the good of the party, and the country, he should step aside.”

Other Republicans also expressed dismay at their choices for the general election, not calling on Trump to drop out but also saying they’re unable to cast a vote for him. Alexandra Smith, National Chairman of College Republicans, referenced Trump’s initial defense of his remarks and tweeted, “The Party of Lincoln is not a locker room, and there is no place for people who think it is. Definitely not with her, but not with him.”

The Party of Lincoln is not a locker room, and there is no place for people who think it is. Definitely not with her, but not with him.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Governor of California and Trump’s replacement host on The Apprentice, also said Trump had lost his vote. “For the first time since I became a citizen in 1983, I will not vote for the Republican candidate for president,” he said in a statement. “I want to take a moment today to remind my fellow Republicans that it is not only acceptable to choose your country over your party— it is your duty.”

For more on Trump, watch:

And Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who never endorsed Trump, said he now knows he won’t be able even to support him privately at the ballot box. “Donald Trump is a man I cannot and should not support,” he said. “The actions of the last day are disgusting, but that’s not why I reached this decision, it has been an accumulation of his words and actions that many have been warning about. I will not vote for a nominee who has behaved in a manner that reflects so poorly on our country.”

The party’s backing away from its nominee began really more as a sprint away Friday night. Within hours of the leaked audio’s publication, GOP boss Reince Priebus, House Speaker Paul Ryan, 2008 nominee John McCain, 2012 nominee Mitt Romney and others had released statements denouncing Trump. The statements have ranged from condemnations of the language itself to full-blown renouncements of the candidate; Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, Rep. Joe Heck, who is running for Senate in Nevada, and South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a member of Senate leadership, all revoked their support for Trump on Saturday and urged him to drop out. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan also revoked support, explicitly saying he doesn’t think Trump can “lead by example” on ending domestic violence and sexual assault.

By midday Saturday, even Rep. Bradley Byrne, from a deep-red district in Alabama, was calling for the Republican nominee to step down. “Donald Trump’s comments regarding women were disgraceful and appalling.” he said. “There are absolutely no circumstances under which it would ever be appropriate to speak of women in such a way. It is now clear Donald Trump is not fit to be President of the United States and cannot defeat Hillary Clinton. I believe he should step aside and allow Governor Pence to lead the Republican ticket.”

Despite the swirling maelstrom and growing calls to step down, Trump refused to quit. “I’d never withdraw. I’ve never withdrawn in my life,” he told the Washington Post, later adding: “Zero chance. I’ve never quit in my life.”

And still, even if he were to step down, it’s too late to scrub his name from the ballots.

‘He’s Been a Deadbeat’: How the Clinton Camp Plans to Pull ‘a Romney’ on Trump

As they gather in Philadelphia Monday to nominate Hillary Clinton, Democrats plan to take a lesson, if not outright direction, from their playbook for defeating the last wealthy Republican nominee, Mitt Romney.

Four years ago, Barack Obama relentlessly caricatured Romney as an out-of-touch millionaire, who could not relate to the needs and concerns of ordinary workers. Clinton’s campaign plans to do the same—and worse—with their new enemy, Donald Trump, honing their attack on the bombastic billionaire, as a leader who only looks out for himself.

Joel Benenson, the Obama-turned-Clinton ad-maker, previewed the assault in an interview with TIME.

“He’s been a deadbeat when it comes to paying people who did work for him and I don’t think that’s what white working class voters are looking for in a president,” said Benenson.

The Clinton campaign released a web video before the Republican convention, featuring an architect who was denied payment from Trump for designing one of his golf clubhouses reminiscent of a 2012 gut-wrenching Priorities USA spot. A piano dealer who was allegedly stiffed by Trump was featured in a similar spot released during the convention.

In that ad, a former worker at a company owned by Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital, recounted building a stage that management used to announce everyone in the factory would be laid off.

“Turns out that when we built that stage, it was like building my own coffin,” said Joe Soptic, the former employee. The ad laid the groundwork for the a series of ads run against Romney later that year, and only magnified by his comments that 47% of the country would vote for Obama no matter what, because they are dependent on government and consider themselves victims.

But Trump is no Romney. The former Massachusetts governor was the embarrassed plutocrat. Trump is the braggart who has been caught inflating his own wealth, as he spent his adult life courting the limelight.

Trump has always specialized in being a wealthy role model for working people, a fact that his campaign emphasized several times during the Republican convention in Cleveland.

“We’re the only children of billionaires as comfortable in a D10 Caterpillar as we are in our own cars,” said Trump’s son, Donald Jr., during his convention speech. “He knows that at the heart of the American dream is the idea that whoever we are, wherever we’re from, we can get ahead.”

Trump’s appeal to the white working class, which has been evident in public polls, has always been ascribed by his aides to his ability to cross class barriers.

“I think people look at his success and see the American Dream,” former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told TIME.

Former Romney senior advisor Stuart Stevens called the perception that Romney was done in by the negative ads was a “myth,” saying demographics were a greater factor in his loss.

“The exit polls showed Romney getting killed on “cares about us,” he said. “But we had tracked that across campaign and it was stable at about -10, which is fairly normal for R vs. D.”

The real thing that moved that number, Stevens added, was Hurricane Sandy, which hit the east coast just days before the election.

“It shot up 40 points with Sandy,” said Stevens. “[It] wasn’t a function of advertising.”

Matt McDonald, a partner at the DC firm Hamilton Place Strategies, who led the Romney campaign’s defense on his wealth, said he doubted the attack would stick on Trump the way it did on his former boss.

“You’re talking about a guy who has spent his entire life talking about how rich he is. So the ‘out-of-touch’ argument, I’m not sure that’s new information.”

“There is no question that some of the things that were said about Mitt Romney were about businesses that went out of business, whether it was because of too much debt, whatever,” Benenson said, before arguing that Trump was a far easier target.

“This guy refused to pay people who were doing the work. He put small businesses out of business. He refused to pay workers like painters and carpenters.”

Benenson suggested the campaign had a lot more examples to roll out.

“Suffice it to say,” he said, “there are ample opportunities to have hard-working Americans talk about the damage that Donald Trump caused in their lives.”